I was really looking forward to coming back to Laguna Seca in week seven, primarily because when the series was there in week three I managed to balls up my week results by crashing out of two of the four races I raced. I scored less than 90 points for the week at a track where I feel I am closer to the top times than most other places.
So when the track came around again I couldn’t wait to get stuck right in. Except the first practice session I completed saw me 1.2 seconds off my previous racing pace! I had no explanation for it, and was totally bemused. The only difference I could detect was that I was now using Leo Bodnars G25 USB pedal box and it seemed to affect my braking into turn one.
I had a bit of work to do and after a whole bunch of practice and time trialling I felt I was back at my previous pace (I equalled my PB of 1:48.0 a few times).
Despite not having a great quali time (I was using a 1:48.6 set early in the week) I threw caution to the wind and dived into the 20:30 race on Wednesday night.
I was pretty pleased to see my grid position was to be second, and a quick scan of the other qualifying times made me think I might have a chance for a good finish if I could have a decent race pace of around 1:48.5.
I got off to a good start and kept second as we went into turn one. The early laps saw me having a real hard time hitting my marks whilst following the leader, but I was keeping with him. They had the edge over the first half of the lap, and I had the edge in the second half of the lap. On lap four I saw him slow greatly and my first thought was it was a black flag, as we had just navigated the corkscrew. It seemed to go on and on (for too long!) and so I passed at the final hairpin and took the lead. I since found that the driver had to take a phone call (gutting!) but at the time I had to deal with the increased pressure and maintain my composure to take the win!
8 tense laps later, I found my groove and after some initial worries I was able to bring it home to take a welcome win (first in a few weeks) and the highest points haul I’ve managed – 141 points.
All in all a good weeks work and this result has seen me hit my season goal of > 800 points (812). This was based on achieving 100 points for each of the eight counted race weeks, so I’m really pleased to hit that tally with only having seven weeks completed, and that includes two ‘bad’ weeks. Also my iRating is now over 2500 and it was another zero incident race.
Given all that I might be looking at a final total of more than 950 points for the season if everything goes to plan!
